Apex Legends March 6 Balancing Update – Complete Patch Notes

Apex Legends has released their first “balancing” update. The update is to provide a more fair playing field for legends, weapons and other parts of the game. Recently, players have been growing unhappy with the balance to weapons, hitboxes, and minor glitches players were able to find in the game.

Today Respawn addressed the complaints by letting players know that it’s still early, and they like to take their time to make sure they get the balancing correct the first time. This latest patch does include changes to the popular weapons “Wingman” and “Peacekeeper”. Respawn does acknowledge the hitbox issues and says they will balance them out once season 1 begins.

Shotgun Bolt rechamber rate has been reduced for the Peacekeeper only.

Level 1 mitigation 10% -> 7.5%

Level 2 mitigation 20% -> 13%

Level 3 mitigation 25% -> 16%

Wingman and Peacekeeper availability has been reduced in all zone tiers.

Increased availability of energy weapons & ammo in all zone tiers.

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Why no P2020 or Mozambique buffs?

We love y’all’s ‘Bique memes, so we’re hesitant to lose that 😛

In all seriousness, our goal is to have a power curve of weapons. “Power curve” just means that some weapons will be weaker and more common, while others will be stronger and rarer. Some weapons are intentionally less powerful until fully purp’d with hopups and attachments, while other weapons on the bottom of the power curve are your early game, better-than-melee, but-gotta-upgrade-out-of-ASAP weapons. We’ve seen some good feedback from players about how to make these pistols more exciting without losing out on the goal above that we’re listening to. We’ll be continuing to watch player data and feedback and trying things out internally but for now, they’ll remain the same.

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ADDITIONAL PATCH NOTES

Fixed some script errors that we identified were occasionally causing disconnects during matches.

Gibraltar occasionally causing disconnects when pulling up his Gun Shield.

Players occasionally causing disconnects when entering Spectate Mode.

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ADDRESSING LEGEND BALANCE AND HITBOX FEEDBACK

TL;DR Our goal is to be able to have characters with different rig sizes, hitboxes and ability kits, and still have each character be roughly equal in power level, win rate and viability of pick.

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For character balance, we look at a combination of things: pick rate, win rate, and character v. character matchup win rate among other metrics, and, of course, player feedback. The results between the 5 small and medium rig characters have been positive – they are all in a safe band of relatively equal power. Our large rig characters, however, are underpowered and their natural size appears to be a large contributor. We’re planning on adjusting the size of the large character hitboxes to better fit the model. If these changes are insufficient to bring these characters in line, we’re also considering a range of other changes such as natural damage reduction as well as individual kit power tweaks. Because many of these changes are significant, we want to make sure they are heavily tested before they go live, in the event they are necessary. Below is a quick overview on the roadmap of how we’re thinking about bringing large characters back in line.

Overall, we want to try to increase the power level of the large rig characters, before we consider large nerfs to everyone else. While we’ve made small adjustments, we’re hopeful that increasing the power of large rigs is healthier than nerfing everyone else.

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[…] However, that can be doubled by finding a level 3 heavy extended magazine to 12. In the latest Apex Legends balancing patch, Respawn decided it was time to tune down the Wingman (along with the powerful Peacekeeper […]